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NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2024 15:10:54 +0000
From: John Larkin <jl@997PotHill.com>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design,sci.electronics.repair
Subject: Re: Favourite Test Equipment
Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2024 08:09:18 -0700
Organization: Highland Tech
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On Tue, 02 Apr 2024 10:10:36 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:

>On a sunny day (Mon, 1 Apr 2024 12:09:00 -0000 (UTC)) it happened piglet
><erichpwagner@hotmail.com> wrote in <uue84s$2fnab$1@dont-email.me>:
>
>>Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> wrote:
>>> On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom
>>> <cd@notformail.com> wrote in <9k7j0jlnbhs8qfg5m17pium0835meean83@4ax.com>:
>>> 
>>>> Hi all,
>>>> 
>>>> I'm starting to get a bit fed up with having my test equipment blow up
>>>> just when it's needed. This is the drawback with vintage gear; if it's
>>>> not used frequently then it can go *bang* the next time you switch it
>>>> on. It makes for good practice in repairing stuff, but wastes a lot of
>>>> time which could be better spent doing other things.
>>>> I think it's time I modernised my test gear. I was just wondering if
>>>> anyone has any recommendations they can share. Is there a particular
>>>> piece of test equipment you couldn't live without? Something you're
>>>> particularly impressed with? I'd be interested to know so I can
>>>> perhaps acquire said item and thereby reduce the number of explosions
>>>> I experience.
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> 
>>>> CD.
>>> 
>>> My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
>>> blew up a channal once myself in the first week
>>> when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
>>> it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
>>> Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
>>> the table (scope stands on the ground)
>>> Made a new graticule.
>>> So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
>>> For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
>>> and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
>>> also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
>>> interrupt things with the meter impedance.
>>> Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
>>> Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
>>> scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
>>> Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
>>> RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
>>> GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
>>> a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
>>> analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
>>> Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
>>> Things last forever here...
>>> Scope used on a regular basis..
>>> RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
>>> Digital meters used every day.
>>> Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
>>> What more do you need?
>>> Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
>>> When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
>>> Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
>>> Not much pocket mony as a kid.
>>> UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
>>> Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
>>> But it does not help you one bit.
>>> Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
>>> like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>
>>Many wise words there.
>>
>>Boat anchors can still be great as they require you to understand better
>>what is being measured and don’t hide things away with abstraction and
>>unhelpful software.
>
>That is why I still use an analog scope
>it is old, it is big, but it does not lie.
>
>I build a 300 MHz analog one long time ago,
>but then moved to far away and donated all stuff,
>including my guitar and trumpet .. amplifiers, audio and video tape recorders, records, TV, radio, what not.
>
>And then many years later when back in the Netherlands started accumulating stuff again, now have boxes full of electronics
>and a nice musical keyboard to play with.
>For me it all is a learning experiment / experience.
>Maybe some code I wrote or some circuit I designed helped somebody, cool.
>I never use much math, a tennis player does not use math to see where the ball will go (wind speed, mass of ball, force of backhand, angles, 
>would take ages.
>It is all in my neural net, electronics
>And somehow everything works.
>Maybe some small building blocks, circuits that I then combine, ever newer ones being accumulated trying out things.
>I did some neural net programming years ago, good chance Ai can beat us in a while.
>It can already do that in the medical field
>But it does not stop at electronics for me, I am very interested in the things it is used for,
>been working in many fields fixing and designing electronics.
>What you learn in one you can sometimes use in the other.

We still have one Tek 7104 (1 GHz microchannel analog scope) that
works. One of my guys likes it.